Author Archives: Editors

USA Vs China & Cold War By F. Sheikh

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President Obama will be visiting South Pacific Asian countries next week. The President is trying to pivot our foreign policy in Asia to build new economic and military alliances , from strengthening our relations with India to new ties with Vietnam and even re-activating military bases in Australia and Philippine. Are we encircling China as a precaution in case of military conflict? Or are we wooing china to start a Cold War and follow the same script as we did with Soviet Union that bankrupted it?

China and USA has a different mindset, and not just in its form of Government, but how to proceed in international affairs. China does not have any ambition of spreading its ideology and does not want to interfere in any other country’s internal or external affairs. It establishes its relations with foreign countries on stand-alone basis. It does not have any expansion designs except quarrels for the disputed territories with its neighbors. China is establishing relations with democratic as well as oppressive regimes in search for natural resources and does not want to pass judgment on their method of governance. Its relations are mostly limited to economic ties and do not come with political strings attached. Despite international pressure, China does not want to become a major stakeholder in international conflict solving endeavors, including international humanitarian crisis.

By contrast an American relation with a foreign country is a wholesome game. We get involve in foreign country’s internal and external affairs both directly and indirectly. Our economic as well as military alliances come with ideological and political strings attached, which are dependent on our own internal politics. Once involved in other country’s affairs, our main goal becomes our own national interest and mutual interest takes a back seat. We get involved in international conflicts with good intentions, because we want to spread our ideals and want to be world leader, but again our national interests take precedent over the interests of the countries involved and the outcome is not always in the best interests of the countries involved. However we are exceptional in organizing and helping in international natural disasters and humanitarian crisis.

During the cold war with Soviet Union, we were competing with Soviet Union on same terms-arms race as well as busy in spreading competing ideologies and sphere of influence. Russia was supporting many communist countries both militarily as well as economically and ultimately went bankrupt both ideologically as well as economically and that lead to disintegration of Soviet Union. USA was economically strong and able to afford the cost of this cold war.

China is a different breed with different mindset and most likely will not take this bait, because historically China is neither interested in expansionism nor spreading of any ideology. China will continue to arm itself to leave no doubt that any ill designs on China’s sovereignty will be ill affordable. Despite territorial disputes with neighbors, China’s main focus is economy and trade with its neighboring countries. Today Vietnam’s main trading partner is China and trade is increasing 20 % per year. In 2013 it rose to $ 60 billion. China will not follow the course of old Soviet Union.

There is an inherent danger of misunderstandings in developing our military ties with countries surrounding China. These countries counting on American help, may start a war with China over territorial dispute, and that can lead to a bigger war which neither country can afford. We are already involved in many military conflicts and our resources are stretched. We encircled Russia with NATO alliances and have taken economic as well as military load of many of these corrupt and economically basket countries. We are doing some of the things which made Soviet Union bankrupt. China has not and most likely will not play the same game. It will be a mistake to view our relations with China with the same old mindset of Cold War with Soviet Union and it may backfire. China is more focused on economic future than anything else, and that is where our focus should be.      

New Humanities & Science

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With more emphasis on scientific evidence in daily life as well as in academia, the discussion is raging whether the Humanities is a dying breed and it has submitted to Science. Are just reasonable arguments enough or arguments has to be supported by science? Following is excerpt from description of the book, Minding The Modern by Thomas Pfau   ( F. Sheikh) 

In this brilliant study, Thomas Pfau argues that the loss of foundational concepts in classical and medieval Aristotelian philosophy caused a fateful separation between reason and will in European thought. Pfau traces the evolution and eventual deterioration of key concepts of human agency—will, person, judgment, action—from antiquity through Scholasticism and on to eighteenth-century moral theory and its critical revision in the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Featuring extended critical discussions of Aristotle, Gnosticism, Augustine, Aquinas, Ockham, Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, Hume, Adam Smith, and Coleridge, this study contends that humanistic concepts these writers seek to elucidate acquire meaning and significance only inasmuch as we are prepared positively to engage (rather than historicize) their previous usages. Beginning with the rise of theological (and, eventually, secular) voluntarism, modern thought appears increasingly reluctant and, in time, unable to engage the deep history of its own underlying conceptions, thus leaving our understanding of the nature and function of humanistic inquiry increasingly frayed and incoherent. One consequence of this shift is to leave the moral self-expression of intellectual elites and ordinary citizens alike stunted, which in turn has fueled the widespread notion that moral and ethical concerns are but a special branch of inquiry largely determined by opinion rather than dialogical reasoning, judgment, and practice.

A clear sign of this regression is the present crisis in the study of the humanities, whose role is overwhelmingly conceived (and negatively appraised) in terms of scientific theories, methods, and objectives. The ultimate casualty of this reductionism has been the very idea of personhood and the disappearance of an adequate ethical language. Minding the Modern is not merely a chapter in the history of ideas; it is a thorough phenomenological and metaphysical study of the roots of today’s predicaments. 

Following are some excerpts from the Editorial in “ Point” on the subject of The New Humanities

“Sadly, the respect of present-day humanities scholars for “the way things have always been done” ranks just barely above their respect for the presidency of George W. Bush. There might have been a time when the humanities offered a counterweight within the university to the sciences’ relentless optimism and obsession with “progress,” but since at least the 1970s—perhaps not incidentally when the enrollment numbers began to decline—only the heretics have stood up for anything resembling tradition. Today’s humanities professors speak of nothing but “new research opportunities,” nothing but “progress,” nothing but the gross injustice of the “way things have always been done.”

Wieseltier and Pinker’s debate is thus academic in the pejorative sense. Wieseltier accuses Pinker of wanting the humanities to submit to the sciences; Pinker maintains that he simply wants the humanities to admit the relevance of scientific methods. Yet with a couple of exceptions (the Core at Columbia and the University of Chicago, the St. John’s colleges, that place out in the California desert where they herd cattle while debating Plato) the scholarly humanities have admitted much more than the relevance of the sciences: they have submitted; they have been subsumed. “Imagine,” writes Wieseltier,”

“This might seem a dire situation for the humanities; and it is, for the academic humanities. Fortunately, the humanities have always been bigger than the academic humanities. Unlike in the sciences, to participate in the conversation about what it means to be human does not require an advanced degree (increasingly it seems to be impeded by it)—which is why it should come as no surprise that the humanities are often more aggressively defended by magazine editors and op-ed columnists than by academics. In Wieseltier’s case, the argument for the sanctity of the academic humanities eventually tilts over into a call for what he calls the “old humanities,” examples of which (like Vendler’s recent piece on Dickinson) abound in the brilliant Books section over which he has stood guard since 1983. – “

http://thepointmag.com/2014/criticism/the-new-humanities

 

Monthly Lecture 10/26/14 by Shoeb Amin. Global Warming: Science or Hot Air?

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Global Warming, Science or Hot Air

I could not possibly recreate the whole talk here so I am presenting the slides I used with a brief explanation of what the slides represent. If there any questions, they can be asked via the blog.

Shoeb

The first few slides show how greenhouse gases got their name; which are the greenhouse gases, their sources, their levels over time. Slide 15 onwards describes possible non-anthropogenic causes of global forming. Slide 20 onwards show how the greenhouse gases are removed from the atmosphere both by nature and how they could be removed by man-made technologies. Slides 22-27 relate to how temperatures and CO2 levels are measured as they existed thousands of years ago; other slides show how sea levels are measured and their effects if they continue to rise. The next few slides show how the skeptics and the pro environmental groups try to prove they are correct(slide #35 should actually be #34).  Slide 35 onwards presents the arguments of people who go to the extreme of saying global warming could be good for you(really only for some). Slide 43 onwards gives my take on the issue, including the immediate deleterious effects of unchecked use of fossil fuels.

 

Editorial Comment by Editor of the Month

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Editorial Comment:

As Editor of the Month of TF USA, I have to ask all Muslim Monotheistic Believers to read  this comment by Babar Mustafa and let us (Editorial Board) know which  statement/s has caused you emotional pain.  That statement will be deleted from this comment using Editorial Privileges.

It can be done without getting permission from the writer  of the comment Babar Mustafa. You have to write to  Editors@ThinkersForumUSABlog.Org

Muslim Monotheistic Believers:

TF USA was initiated by Muslim Believers 5 years ago.

First session of TF USA was in November, 2009.  Now TF USA is a registered non-Profit organization supervised by 9 Board of Directors and 6 members of Editorial Board.

TF USA Affiliates include, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Skeptics, Agnostics, Atheists and non-believers.

The purpose of TF USA is to provide an unbiased, fair, balanced intellectual environment where affiliates can participate in  intellectual interactions.

 

Website says on the first page:

“TO ACQUIRE INTELLECTUAL EMPWOERMENT THROUGH EXCHANGE OF IDEAS FOR  BETTERMENT OF SELF AND SOCIETY AT LARGE”.

Editorial Board is restricted by strict policy guidelines to post or not post a comment or any article.

Editorial Board is not a monolithic group of people.  We disagree with each other all the time. But majority decision prevails.  We debate on lot of issues but once the vote is taken we have to abide by majority decision.

This procedure is like any other democratic institution.

nSalik (Noor Salik)